The high-ranking Benghazi cover-up whistleblowers (which the Obama Administration has been trying to silence) will be testifying before a Congressional Inquiry Wednesday, May 8. You can probably catch bits on CSPAN, although you might have to use a Tivo (somehow, magically, stuff that's embarrassing to the Administration typically ends up being played in the wee hours of the morning).

Quote:

A Benghazi bombshell

The Obama administration wants to consign the Benghazi terrorist attack to the history books, but this week three State Department officials will tell Congress that the Obama administration’s version of history is false — and that the falsehoods it told the American people were willful and deliberate.

One of the whistleblowers, Mark Thompson, deputy coordinator for operations in the State Department’s counterterrorism bureau, was in direct, real-time communication with people on the ground during the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Libya, before he was locked out of the room. Yet despite his firsthand knowledge of how the attack unfolded, he was not interviewed by the State Department’s Accountability Review Board, even though he asked to be. According to sources I spoke with, Thompson will testify that the circumstances under which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died have been “purposefully misrepresented” by the administration and that “all their public statements from the initial account to the talking points [that Ambassador Susan Rice used on the Sunday shows] were false, and they knew it.”

Gregory Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the attack, will apparently back up that charge. This weekend, Rep. Darryl Issa (R-Calif.), who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, revealed some of what Hicks told congressional investigators: “My jaw hit the floor as I watched [Rice speak] .... I’ve never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day. . . . I never reported a demonstration; I reported an attack on the consulate.”

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. Blah, blah, blah. Like a broken record. That was ages ago. Can we get back to business of recovering from Bush?_________________The whole system has to go. The modern criminal justice system is incompatible with Neuroscience. --Sapolsky

Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. Blah, blah, blah. Like a broken record. That was ages ago. Can we get back to business of recovering from Bush?

Like Hillary said, while testifying before Congress and sporting her teleprompter glasses, in a carefully rehearsed emotional outburst of absolute nonsense artfully garnished with colloquially poor grammar obviously intended to appeal to us ignorant, unwashed masses: "What does it even matter any more whose fault it is?! Our job now is to make sure it can never happen again!"

How one does that without first finding out what faults occurred, and without punishing those responsible to establish a clear incentive to avoid such behavior, is a mystery to small-minded people like me, though._________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

I just can't figure out why seemingly alive people ignore everything he does or fails to do._________________The whole system has to go. The modern criminal justice system is incompatible with Neuroscience. --Sapolsky

White House spokesman Jay Carney last week tried to dismiss Benghazi as something that “happened a long time ago.” With all respect, the attack took place just eight months ago. To the families who woke up this morning without sons and husbands and fathers by their side, it does not feel like “a long time ago.”

Moreover, eight months later, we still have not gotten the full story of what happened. If all the facts are out, and the administration truly has nothing to hide, why has it reportedly tried to silence these career State Department officials?

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that eight months have passed since Benghazi and still nothing has been done about it. Our country suffered a coordinated terrorist attack on an American diplomatic facility. A U.S. ambassador was killed at the hands of our terrorist enemies. Yet no one has been brought to justice — nor has justice been delivered to anyone.

Maybe before the Obama administration closes the book on Benghazi, it ought to tell the truth about what happened — and then actually do something to avenge these dead Americans. Because when a president seems more intent to sweep a terrorist attack under the rug than he is to respond to it, it sends a message of weakness to our enemies and invites new attacks.

_________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

Religion is the opiate of the masses. Like questionable missionaries luring the impressionable with candy, government lures with handouts. Oh, you said not so bleak. Hmm. Sorry, I'm drawing a blank._________________The whole system has to go. The modern criminal justice system is incompatible with Neuroscience. --Sapolsky

It's because they believe he is better than the alternative, and Republicans give them plenty of ammunition to feed that belief. As long as Republicans have candidates going around talking about being witches, about how rape is God's will, and about how the Earth is only 4,000 years old, what do they expect?

Tonight, however, NBC Nightly News actually came down hard on the Obama Administration (or tried hard to create that impression), saying that, from the testimony being given in Congress, it has become abundantly clear that the White House and the State Department were more concerned about how to spin the incident as something other than a terrorist attack for the media than how to actually respond to it. They did sort of throw Hillary under the bus on this, referring to the State Department as "Hillary Clinton's State Department", and repeating the White House's latest excuse that it was acting more as a broker between the CIA, who wanted to tell the truth, and the State Department, who wanted to portray it as nothing but a protest.

So this must be the latest version of reality from the White House. Throw Hillary the rest of the way under the bus, protect the President.

It's funny, but that's not the way I remember it. I vaguely remember shortly after the incident Hillary blurting something about a terrorist attack, and then the White House stepping in with the "Nothing to see here, folks, move along" bullshit, followed by Hillary's deputy being put on the hook to get in front of the press and tell the official lies.

NBC also came down on the IRS tonight for stonewalling the applications for Tax-Exempt status of all the conservative NGOs which they thought might be associated with the Tea Party movement. Although NBC did try to portray this as something done by low-level functionaries without the knowledge of the senior Obama-appointed officials (and of course, as this implies, completely without the knowledge of the White House or Obama himself).

Obama is just like sociopath Jodi Arias -- one lie after another, the bolder the better, convinced you can make people believe anything, and when backed into a corner, don't admit fault, just admit the part you can't get away with lying about any more, while throwing as much blame as you can on other people and conjuring up the best distractions you can manage._________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

Obama was making a big speech today allegedly about Syria, in which he also addressed the two currently festering scandals (Benghazi and abuse of authority during the lead-up to the Presidential campaign to harass and interdict Tea Party activists), so that he could portray these issues as distractions from the important work he is doing.

On Benghazi (which was also during the campaign) he still denies any wrong-doing, reminding us that he had said it was terrorists (even though that was only once, and before his administration got their story together and started saying it wasn't). On the abuse of authority, he says it was individuals within the IRS (as though he had nothing to do with it) and that he will get to the bottom of it and make sure they are punished.

He says these issues should not be "politicized", as though they weren't partisan political actions to begin with, specifically taken for political reasons. _________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

It's because they believe he is better than the alternative, and Republicans give them plenty of ammunition to feed that belief. As long as Republicans have candidates going around talking about being witches, about how rape is God's will, and about how the Earth is only 4,000 years old, what do they expect?

bingo!

as much as I disagree with Reagan, Bush Sr, Barry Goldwater etc etc etc, they were serious. Not clowns. Something happened and it wasn't good._________________

wswartzendruber wrote:

Well, every group has its nutjobs, and the Second Amendment crowd is no exception.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa! The issue here is that Democrats have become far better at crucifying their opposition when they do make a silly misstep. There is no shortage of leftists saying stupid crap that would get them destroyed had the Republican propaganda machine been up to the task.

There are democrat witches, truthers, raging racists, one of their heroes was driving drunk into a lake and let the woman he was with drown, etc.

In short an environment which increasingly fosters authoritarian thought gives Democrats an edge._________________"History began on July 4,1776. Everything before that was a mistake." -Ron Swanson

The Democrats are even worse populist demagogues, and have their own brand of total fools. On top of that, they constantly fuck themselves over by pretending to want what's best and to be on the moral high ground, and then making it very, very obvious they are just cheap, corrupt, con men out for Number One.

I'd rather have a President who is stupid than one with no morals._________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

It's because they believe he is better than the alternative, and Republicans give them plenty of ammunition to feed that belief. As long as Republicans have candidates going around talking about being witches, about how rape is God's will, and about how the Earth is only 4,000 years old, what do they expect?

bingo!

as much as I disagree with Reagan, Bush Sr, Barry Goldwater etc etc etc, they were serious. Not clowns. Something happened and it wasn't good.

This is why I wrote in Ron Paul on my ballot.

He may have been a crotchety old man and I disagree with some of what he says, but at least you know what your getting. And he wouldn't settle for the status quo, which isn't working.

It's because they believe he is better than the alternative, and Republicans give them plenty of ammunition to feed that belief. As long as Republicans have candidates going around talking about being witches, about how rape is God's will, and about how the Earth is only 4,000 years old, what do they expect?

The other issue is that they run moderates to help pull the independents and the Blue Dog Democrats, which just ends up pissing off the real conservative base and/or feeds the stereotype you mention.

Look at Romney - he was slammed because (a) he was the rich white guy and the claim is the GOP is a bunch of rich white guys and (b) he was too moderate and didn't give enough specifics.

IIRC, 4 million people sat out the 2012 election, 3 million or so had voted for McCain in 2008. If those 3 million voted, Obama probably wouldn't be president.

One third of Democrats, and two-thirds of independents, say Obama is lying regarding Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting, wiretapping of news agencies, etc. Obama says this is the same as being Birthers -- that they're just out to get him.

Quote:

It’s not just Republicans up in arms about Benghazi. That’s a problem for President Obama.

Last year’s deadly attack on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya is shaping up as a real political problem for President Obama, with concern extending well beyond the conservative base. More than half of Americans say his administration is trying to cover up the facts of the attack, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fully 55 percent say the Obama administration is trying to hide the facts, while just 33 percent say it has honestly disclosed what it knows of the incident. It’s not just Republicans crying foul: Six in 10 independents and nearly three in 10 Democrats say the administration is not being forthright.

Meanwhile, Whitehouse Spokesperson Jay Carney launched a new talking point: for the lemmings to bounce around the echosphere -- criticizing Obama for the Benghazi cover-up, or the IRS abuse of power and Constitutional violations, or wiretapping of news agencies and reporters, is the same as being a Birther. Nothing to see here folks, move along._________________

patrix_neo wrote:

The human thought: I cannot win.
The ratbrain in me : I can only go forward and that's it.

Last edited by Bones McCracker on Thu May 23, 2013 2:39 am; edited 1 time in total

Obama says this is the same as being Birthers -- that they're just out to get him.

If there's one thing I've learned from Obama, it is that the ends were just and the means are not to be questioned._________________The whole system has to go. The modern criminal justice system is incompatible with Neuroscience. --Sapolsky